Wednesday 15-03-2017 - 15:49

One of the highlights of Green Lancaster Week is the ‘Nine Colleges Sustainability Challenge’. This year teams from Grad, Fylde, Bowland, County, Furness and a joint Cartmel and Lonsdale team went head to head pitching their best sustainable ideas for the trophy.

For the last 7 weeks the teams have been working on ideas to make the University more sustainable and on Wednesday (March 14) they pitched these ideas to a panel of judges. Ideas presents ranged from use of data to better manage the way individual rooms are heated across campus to an awareness raising campaign focussing on how damaging plasticised coffee cups are for the environment.

Prizes were presented by Lancaster University Vice Chancellor, Professor Mark E Smith to winners, Cartmel and Lonsdale Colleges. They took home the sustainable sourced trophy after presenting a well-researched and professionally delivered proposal for the introduction of honey bees and wildflower meadows to campus.

The Judges, Professor Gail Whiteman of the Pentland Centre; Professor Gordon Walker of the DEMAND Centre; Mark Swindlehurst, Director of Facilities; and Steve Bryan, Environmental Compliance Co-ordinator at Heysham 2 Power Station, praised the idea for its practical simplicity and effectiveness in engaging the wider community.

Bowland, last year’s winners, were runners up with a combination of ideas to reduce waste on campus including a central ‘shared fridge’ for students and staff to offer their potential food waste to others before it spoils.

The competition is now in its second year and aims to stimulate new ideas to make the University more sustainable while also providing students with the opportunity to work in cross-faculty teams and build skills such as research, teamwork and presentation skills.

See a few more photos here.